Nifty News

Faithful Followers

Monday, March 15, 2010

I have a love/hate relationship with my email. For some reason, I can never seem to get my box to under 50 or so. I hate that. I try and try, but for every email I read, it seems like two more come in. I love the fan mail, the questions and comments from readers, and the people who write to share their stories with me. I even love getting offers from companies to check out their latest products and services. I love getting offers to take tours and trips, and to try out the cool products that are out there. But I hate all the time it takes to read and respond to email. And I hate all the spam I get on a daily basis. Wait, actually that's not entirely accurate. I did hate it until I got the idea to turn it into blog fodder. For example, here are a couple of the more, um, interesting emails I received today...

Dear Friend,With due respect to your person and much sincerity of purpose I make this contact with you as I believe that you can be of great assistance to me. My name is Mr Braun Duka from Ouagadougou Republic of BURKINA FASO, West Africa. Presently i work in the Bank as telex manager. I have been searching for your contact since you left our country some years ago .I do not know whether this is your correct email address or not because I only used your name initials to search for your contact in the internet .

OK, so let me get this straight. You're looking for someone who left your country and after searching the Internet for them by using ONLY THEIR INITIALS, you came to the conclusion that this must be the correct email address? Uh huh. I see. Proceed.

In case you are not the person I am supposed to contact , please see this as a confidential message and do not reveal it to another person but if you are not the intended receiver, do let me know whether you can be of assistance regarding my proposal below because it is top secret.

Certainly. What a great idea to send a "top secret" proposal to someone who may possibly be your intended recipient based on an Internet search of THEIR INITIALS! What could go wrong?

I am about to retire from active Bank service to start a new life but I am sceptical to reveal this particular secret to a stranger . You must assure me that everything will be handled confidentially because we are not going to suffer again in life.I'm a little "sceptical" of your spelling skills. Hmmm, I'm beginning to think this might not be legitimate.

It has been 10 years now that most of the greedy African Politicians used our bank to Launder money overseas through the help of their Political advisers.

What's with the random capitalization?

Most of the funds which they transferred out of the shores of Africa was gold and oil money that was supposed to have been used to develop the continent. Their Political advisers always inflated the amounts before transfer to foreign accounts so I also used the opportunity to divert part of the funds hence I am aware that there is no official trace of how much was transferred as all the accounts used for such transfers were being closed after transfer.

Ummm, huh?

I acted as the Bank Officer to most of the politicians and when I discovered that they were using me to succeed in their greedy act, I also cleaned some of their banking records from the Bank files and no one cared to ask me because the money was too much for them to control.

Still a little confused here.

They laundered over $5b(five billion) united states Dollars during the process .

Again with the random capitalization?

As I am sending this message to you, I was able to divert One Hundred Million Dollars ($150m)

I have the math skills of a fourth grader and know that doesn't make sense.

to an escrow account belonging to no one in the bank. The bank is anxious now to know who is the beneficiary to the funds because they have made a lot of profits with the funds.

It is Eight years now

Wait a minute. It was ten years a couple paragraphs ago. Let's split the difference and call it nine years, ok?

and most of the politicians are no longer using our bank to transfer funds overseas. The ($150m) Million Dollars has been lying waste but I don't want to retire from the bank without transferring the funds to a foreign account to enable me share the proceeds with the receiver. The money will be shared 60% for me and 40% for you .

Well, that makes perfect sense. When I retire, I intend to transfer my funds to Africa and split them with a randomly selected stranger via the Internet. And what's with the 60/40 split? Tell you what - you give me 70% of your imaginary funds and it's a deal!

There is no one coming to ask you about the funds because I secured everything.I only want you to assist me by providing a bank account where the funds can be transferred. You are not to face any difficulties or legal implications as I am going to handle the transfer personally. If you are capable of receiving the funds, do let me know immediately to enable me give you a detailed information on what to do.

Oh, how nice that you're handling everything for me.

For me, I have not stolen the money from anyone because the other people that took the whole money did not face any problems.

Umm, ???

This is my chance also to grab my own but you must keep the details of the funds secret to avoid leakages as no one in the bank knows about the funds.

No one knows about the funds? But a minute ago, you said that the bank was anxious to know who the beneficiary was. I'm confused.

Please supply me the following:Your current contact address and Telephone Numbers..I shall intimate you on what to do when I get your confirmation and acceptance. If you are capable of being my trusted associate, do declare your consent to me.Waiting for your urgent response.

Yours Faithfully,Mr Braun Duka

Of course, I notified him immediately and gave him all my information. Any day now, I'll be the recipient of $60,000,000. Woo Hoo! I guess I'll be able to take my kids somewhere on spring break after all.

I also got an email from yet another banker in West Africa offering me 40% of the late Michael Colon's 5,500,000. Wow!

Then, as if those two weren't enough, I got notification that I'd won the Australian lottery! Maybe turning forty won't be so bad after all! I mean, I'm going to be a multi-millionaire so I can afford Botox and hair dye, and I can get face lifts until my ears touch!

The Australian Lottery Power ball wishes to congratulate you on your success as one of our Ten ( 10 ) Star Australian Lottery Prize Winner in this Years 2010 Lottery that was conducted over the internet with our automated e-mail selecting machine.

beckettjamie@gmail.com / Phone Number:+447035954752 with the under listed information as soon as possible.

Interesting. I wonder why I would have to call the code for The United Kingdom to claim my Australian lottery winnings. Even stranger is the fact that I remember that 44 is the code for the UK from like 20 years ago when I had to make a call to the UK for work. Hmmm, I can remember THAT, but I can't remember to take my car in for an oil change.

HI Dawn,Regarding waking w/ numb hands and creaking knees.... I dealt w/ the same exact thing for almost two years. Thought it was just the near 40 setting in, but after a simple blood test, found out I was severely Vitamin D Deficient. So Get Checked Out and Your problems may End! Ok, a little Random capping fun to annoY you.

I've always been afraid that if I open e-mails like that they will 1) spontaneously blow a hole in the universe and/or 2) crash my whole computer! :) Now I know they can be a good source of entertainment!

Thanks for sharing and for starting my day off with a smile. Hope you have a great day! :)

I think that Braun Duka also found me online! Oh, wait. No. The guy who found me was a member of the Royal Family of some random African country who was desperate to hide the family's assets in my bank account.

Congratulations Ms. Dawn on your great fortune. Now, if you would be able to securely e-mail me your financial information, I have a secret windfall that I would like to share with you from your ancestors. You see, they had left me in charge of their many estates in many countries and now I'm nearing the end of my financial days. You see, I'm 362 years old and have been the keeper of said estates since the beginnings of your family. Please contact me with appropriate bank information so as to transfer your many monies on to you as quickly as possible.

So wait, does that mean there are not enough people in either Canada or Australia who would enjoy winning money in their own respective countries? They have to go soliciting winners from other countries? Sign me up...if they're that desperate to give away cash, and can't find ANYONE locally to give it to, then by all means, send it my way! :)

I FREAKING HATE THOSE EMAILS!!!! I get them all the time! I should have been a millionaire by now had I responded to them too. HOW do they get my email and HOW can I get them to forget it?!!?! Take care - Jenn

Ok Dawn - it's official - you have the best blog!! At the top of your blog, there is an option to click for the next blog - and they are always different for some reason. Anyways, they all stink!! Some people never update, and most have absolutely nothing interesting or funny to say. So cheers to you, girl - you always make me laugh!

If you have ever seen the show Intervention on A&E, there was a guy who fell for these scams and was broke :( It was quite sad. They showed him on the phone with a gentleman named George Washington. Unfortunately (and obviously), he had a lot of problems, but amazingly this IS working for these people! Unbelievable!

The sad thing about this is that my 91 YO father in law has been taken in by these types of people. We keep telling him that they are fake, but he continues to answer their mail and he gets tons of phone calls, even after we have changed his number twice!